​Being Smart About Mobile Native Video

The human penchant for sight, sound, and motion has transcended the boundaries of TV. Likely so, video is gaining prominence as a primary mode of communication in the mobile world too. An average user is exposed to about 32.3 videos in a month
1. To ensure that the message stands out to achieve the desired outcome, marketers need to be cognizant of the medium and the environment of the user. The basic tenets of marketing: the right message, to the right user, at the right time and place have to be imbibed while devising campaigns.

A mobile native video is a perfect combination served within the user’s context in her favorite medium on her preferred device. To drive the best results out of the mobile native video, the MMA native committee members inclusive of InMobi, Adxcel LLC, Electronic Arts Inc, Flipboard, Jun Group, Nativo, PubNative, Triad Retail Media, and VEVO have come together to craft native video best practices based on their past experiences of running similar campaigns.

To summarize, marketers should heed the following to improve the efficacy of their native video ad campaigns:

Grab user’s attention within the first 2-3 seconds of the video with a compelling narrative.

Become truly native to the user’s experience by making sound secondary. Tailor the video in a fashion that storytelling comes through even when on mute.

Keep the video length as short as necessary to be able to convey the message and align it with the objective.

Identify environments and publisher contexts that are most relevant to the campaign and customize messaging accordingly.

Consider gaming environments to reach the target audience as the same user sits across multiple gaming and non-gaming apps.

Make the ad experience seamless for the user by aligning sound, auto-play, and skip as per the user’s environment.

Measure viewability to ensure that the message was indeed delivered to the user.

Identify direct response metrics and end conversion metrics that impact the business and optimize the ad campaigns to achieve them.

While it will be some time before the ecosystem matures enough to a gold standard on native video, the committee's work is an early attempt at throwing some light on the topic. Putting these best practices into execution can convert an indifferent scroll into a thoughtful click.